Jehangir Badr: Man of difficult times

Obituary

The man who stood in most difficult times with successive Bhuttos during their long trials and emerged from the narrow alleys of inner city of old Lahore as a workers’ leader, Jehangir Badar known as JB finally lost his struggle for life.

This was during the most popular upsurge of students, youths and working classes in 1968-69 against Field Martial Ayub Khan’s authoritarian model of development that he got his first lessons of popular democratic politics. A student of commerce in Hailey College right in the centre of the city, he could not have escaped the most progressive movement in Pakistan’s history that was, eventually, to determine its fate.

His first contest was the election of Punjab University Students’ Union for the post of its president, after the ban was lifted after many years. The western part of the country was polarized between the left and the right and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto captured the leadership of the movement to challenge the forces of exploitation. Badar was helped by the progressive students, Nationalist Students’ Organization (NSO) and National Students Federation (NSF) in particular, who instead of bringing one of their leaders to fight the Islami Jamiat Talaba candidate, Hafiz Idrees, adopted a more popular candidate. The contest turned into an electoral dispute and resulted in the conviction of leaders from both sides by a military court. After his release from Jail, JB tried his luck again but failed to win against a liberal candidate that IJT had co-opted.

Z. A. Bhutto spotted the promise in JB who became his disciple and remained loyal to the party, PPP, till his last breath. Reverting back into the narrow streets of old city, JB built a base of his own in what was in fact a bastion of PPP power. His real talent came to fore during the most ruthless and reactionary military dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq. He was among those thousands of Jayalas who defied the dictator and were imprisoned for longer time. He was among those who assisted Begum Nusrat Bhutto to build a campaign to save Bhutto from the gallows through what is universally seen as a judicial murder. When many leaders abandoned Bhutto, JB stood with the party and helped organize Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. Unlike Jamaat’s student leaders, including Javed Hasmi, he preferred to go to jail rather than finding an easy way to a dummy parliament that Zia created through non-party elections. His reward was long imprisonment and lashes for fighting for the restoration of democracy and peoples’ rights.

JB was a great campaigner and a remarkable organizer and kept the PPP alive during the most repressive military regimes. His task was quite daunting since General Zia and Governor General Jilani wanted to build a new class of politicians, in the Punjab in particular, who hated a populist socialist agenda of Bhutto. The Pakistan National Movement (PNA) in the name of bringing Nizam-i-Mustaffa had successfully built a most reactionary movement by creating a formidable alliance of Military, Mullahs and the forces of Bazaar who had been offended by Bhutto’s liberal-populism and ‘socialism’.

But these were likes of Jehangir Badar who kept the PPP flag flying in the Punjab, despite innumerable odds. After having been betrayed by lots of uncles, Ms Benazir Bhutto picked JB to lead and reorganize the party in the Punjab. Being one from among the workers, he brought the activists or Jiyalas together and arranged a historic reception of BB in Lahore in 1986, which was historic and remains unprecedented that changed the fate of the politics to come.

He won from Lahore in 1988, but the PPP was not allowed to win majority in the Punjab as the establishment created Islamic Jamhoori Itehad to not let PPP take back its bastion of power. Selection of Farooq Leghari as the candidate for the post of CM in Punjab was the fatal mistake that was going to irreparably cost the PPP in future. During a short stint of Ms Bhutto’s first government, he was made a minister.

Even during the reign of General Musharraf, JB suffered a lot and continued to hold his grounds in a city that had already slipped out of the PPP’s hands. Even though Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was hounded out of the country, the PML-N kept its influence, despite massive defections. When BB came back, after breaking the deal she struck with Gen Musharraf, JB was again on her side till the time she was assassinated in Rawalpindi. This was JB who played a crucial role in all four transitions of the PPP—from Mr Bhutto to Nusrat Bhutto, and from Begum Sahiba to BB and after her assassination to Asif Ali Zardari and, lastly, to Bilawal Bhutto. With this ends an illustrious political career of a common Jayala who left behind a name in the service of the people, despite his many weaknesses. To me he was a most loving friend who always used to call me “Chief” since NSO times that I chaired and nominated him as a unified candidate of the left in that disastrous University Union elections in 1969. We shared the dreams of a social democratic Pakistan, suffered together, struggled separately, but always remained comrades, despite having serious differences. Goodbye dear JB. We will miss the spontaneity and frankness of your affection, hospitality and friendship—rare commodities these days.